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Willie Ford is improving
clinical performance at HCA
His team of developers integrates data for the
clinical services group, boosting the performance
of hospital processes and patient care procedures
 Early in his IT career Willie Ford learned the importance of blending great tech skills with an easy and exciting public speaking style. That winning combination took him to important positions at the Disney World Resort (Orlando, FL) and in his current job at Hospital Corp of America (HCA, Nashville, TN).
Ford, an IT manager, oversees enterprise clinical reporting for HCA. His seven-person team of developers integrates and centralizes data for the clinical services group, which works on improving clinical performance. This includes new hospital processes and procedures to improve patient care and safety measures in healthcare delivery across the spectrum of HCA hospitals, Ford says.
“For example, with something like H1N1 flu, we’re capturing data and producing reports that are used by our hospitals to react to the situation. That data is also shared with the Centers for Disease Control,” he explains.
Shaping vision and strategy
Twenty business and data analysts support Ford’s team. Because they all have a depth of IT experience, Ford’s management style is to work with HCA business partners to shape vision and strategy while allowing his team to do what they do best. “I require full participation from the team so we can avoid mistakes. We have a high level of accountability, and that’s one reason why I like my role,” he says.
He also has a few projects being handled by an offshore team in India. “I view them as helpful additional resources,” he says. “We have to meet the demands of our customers and every day we’re asked to produce more reports.”
True, managing the projects remotely does create some communication challenges. “But the team I’ve been working with in India is great. We provide them with our requirements and the documentation they need, and then we do the quality checks. If things are great, we move forward.”
Top place to work
HCA is recognized as a top 100 place to work, and Ford thinks so, too. Most of his team members telecommute, and the corporate culture is one of Southern friendliness, he says.
“It’s a large company but hasn’t lost the family atmosphere. You can always find people to help you out. It’s good from that perspective, and it’s also family-friendly, allowing you to balance work and life,” Ford reports.
The company also encourages community involvement. An internal website lists various possibilities, and employees can use up to thirty-two working hours a year for “community time.” Ford spends his hours working with a community resource center and is also a board member there.
Into the field of the future
Ford grew up in the Mississippi Delta. In high school in the late 1980s he took a basic programming course and realized this was the “field of the future.” He graduated from Tennessee State University with a BSCS in 1992, and in 2000 he completed his MBA at Xavier University (Cincinnati, OH).
He worked as a systems analyst at Mead Corp (Dayton, OH) from 1992 to 1995. An early success was designing and implementing a process for the company’s fleet-leasing application. His work reduced vehicle maintenance costs and improved the company’s overall vehicle management. He went on to DBA and DB admin team leader.
In 2000 Ford moved to EMC Corp (Cincinnati, OH). He spent a year there as a technical account manager.
“It was intriguing. I was designing presentations and handling pre-sales where you put together a technical solution to make the sale. I had the opportunity to get in front of senior leaders and present information in rapid-fire sessions,” Ford says.
Disney World
He also had the opportunity to attend the National Black MBA convention, where he met an IT manager from Disney World (Orlando, FL). Several months later that manager offered him a job, and in 2001 Ford became an IT manager at Downtown Disney, the merchandising heart of the resort.
His first assignments were to implement a sales and marketing data warehouse and design a strategy for reporting business intelligence. All this involved managing several teams.
Into supply chain
Next Ford worked on a merchandise supply chain project, and that got him into program management. “I did several projects and coordinated schedules. I liked the big-picture vision and bringing together the pieces,” he says.
“You are working with the vendors, getting the merchandise to the warehouse, to the back of the store, to the shelf. You need a core system to make it happen, and we were replacing those systems.”
Retail is a huge line of business for Disney, and Ford was on a very visible project, working with senior leaders. He notes that Disney World is, quite literally, “a magical experience.”
“There aren’t many places like this where you work and deliver a project and then get to see the guests experiencing it! We used to go out to the parks and see families and kids.”
HCA today
He left Disney because of the need to be near extended family, and he’s very happy with HCA, his current employer.
He feels more strongly than ever the importance of belonging to associations like the National Black MBAs. Without that encounter he never would have had the chance to work at Disney and gain the experience for his job at HCA today.
“From a technology perspective, most companies are doing similar work. To meet your peers at a conference and learn about interesting new opportunities certainly helps with your professional development,” he says.
D/C
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